Profile

Donna Rachelson is the CEO and founder of Branding & Marketing YOU, a company that specialises in personal branding and marketing - and the author of the best-selling book of the same name. Donna can be contacted on moc.uoygnitekramdnagnidnarb@annod or visit www.brandingandmarketingyou.com.

Donna Rachelson BA (Soc Work), Hons (Indus), MBA (Wits) is a business and marketing innovator with a passion for building people and businesses brands.

She has over 20 years of diverse experience in the fields of strategy, marketing and change management. Key positions held in her career include: Marketing Director for Nando's; Marketing Director for the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants; Marketing Director for DNA Supply Chains; Project Manager Priority Banking at Standard Bank of South Africa and various management positions at African Explosives and Chemical Industries (AECI).

Donna obtained her BA (Social Work) degree and BA Honours in Industrial Social Work through the University of the Witwatersrand. She completed her MBA through Wits Business School (WBS). She has 10 years of lecturing experience and has lectured marketing on the MAP programme at WBS. She also offers keynote speeches on various topics and is an accomplished professional speaker.

The 30-second elevator pitch, your next social media update, your LinkedIn profile, and the answer to the question ‘tell me about yourself' are all opportunities to make a great first impression. They are also ideal occasions to showcase your own personal brand...

It's not about adding an extra marketing channel to your arsenal in 2015, with all of the accompanying admin, energy, input and spend. What I suggest is exactly the opposite: paring down the number of channels you use...

If you think that personal branding is for celebs like George Clooney, or bigwigs like Bill Gates, you need to think again! You are a brand. So, before you market your company in 2015, you need to market yourself...

Many entrepreneurs that I speak to tell me they know they need to market their business, but they just don't have the time, or they don't know where to start. While I understand that marketing can seem intimidating, it presents huge opportunities...

As an entrepreneur, I network extensively with other entrepreneurs and I am always inspired by their energy, expertise and passion. Yet as a professional in the marketing industry, I often find that entrepreneurs and startups do not know how to tackle marketing effectively...

What truly makes successful networkers great at connecting with people is not that they have studied the principles of networking so much as that people just like engaging with them. Yes - that's the number one characteristic of brilliant networkers: they are likeable.

When many people think of "personal marketing", what they picture is something to the effect of that last situation: somebody shouting from the rooftops about just how fabulous he or she is. But, contrary to popular belief, personal marketing is not about spamming people with inflated descriptions of your abilities. It's about getting noticed for the value you add.

Often, in business or personal encounters with other people, we hear the phrase, "So, tell me a bit about yourself." Yet many of us don't have a well-packaged answer ready. And that means that we miss out on an opportunity to quickly convey all the most important things we want people to know about us. Instead, we ramble and leave out key bits of information.

What's your dream job? Everyone has one. Whether you want to work on a particular project, for a specific company, or you long to accomplish a defined goal, you probably have an idea in your mind of what your dream job would be. Instead of dreaming about that job, choose to pursue it and increase your chances of turning it into a reality.

Fact: Social media is not a bubble that will burst anytime soon. It's here to stay and it's influencing the way people communicate and do business. It makes sense, then, to ensure you know how to use it as a tool in your own career.